1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a novel organic triblock compound, a solid lubricant comprising the same, and a magnetic recording medium comprising a lubricant layer containing said solid lubricant.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a ferromagnetic metal thin film type magnetic recording medium, which is produced by coating a ferromagnetic metal or alloy on a non-magnetic substrate by vacuum deposition and so on, is becoming a common magnetic recording medium, since an anti-magnetization of a magnetic layer is easily increased and a thickness of the magnetic layer is easily reduced so that a recording density can be increased in comparison with a coating type magnetic recording medium. However, since the magnetic layer does not contain any binder resin having good toughness, and surface smoothness of the ferromagnetic metal thin layer or a protective layer is very high, a coefficient of friction between the surface of the medium and a magnetic head is increased, so that the magnetic layer is easily abraded or damaged, and therefore its durability and running property are low.
In order to prolong a duration of service of an equipment or apparatus in which a pair of solid parts such as the surface of the ferromagnetic metal thin film type magnetic recording medium and the magnetic head are contacted with low friction and low abrasion, hardening of the solid surface and lubricants have been studied and developed.
In particular, in the field of office automation (OA) equipment, down-sizing is highly required, and a precision mechanism is employed in the sliding portion. As the reduction in size continues, future machines equipment, in which precision parts are continuously or discontinuously moved in a sliding manner under a wide variety of circumstances, friction and abrasion should be further decreased during the start or end of the sliding movement or during the sliding movement, and reduce the load on the motor. To this end, various lubricants are proposed, and tried.
In a conventional protective lubricating system, a surface layer which is hard and less abraded is provided on a sliding part, and a greasy or oily semi-solid or liquid lubricant is used as a lubricant. However, with the improved precision machines or equipment having a much improved smoother contact area, no lubricant exists which that can enable the two contacted solid parts to in a sliding manner move with low friction and low abrasion under any circumstance, for example, at a high or low speed, or under small or large load. Accordingly, the conventional lubricating system cannot compensate for the friction force which results from accidents occurring during an abrupt increase in the start movement or sliding movement.
Consequently, a lubricant to be used in the thin metal film type magnetic recording medium having very high surface smoothness is required to have very strict characteristics which are different from those required for the lubricant used in the coating type magnetic recording medium, and a novel lubricant has been sought.